School Board Approves Massive Morristown High School Expansion

The Morris School District Board of Education has approved a massive expansion project to Morristown High School that will take four years to complete.

In a press release provided by the district, the expansion is outlined in four separate phases that will bring up-to-date and state-of-the-art teaching components to the school.

Enrollment has grown from 1,442 to 1,683 between 2011 and the start of the current school year, and is projected to jump another 300 students by the start of the 2018 school year.

Morristown High School serves students from Morristown and Morris Township. The last renovation seen by the high school took place in 1983, and the building itself was constructed in 1918.

The first of the four phases is the construction of a 24,000-square-foot, three-story addition, which will begin in June 2015 and expected to be completed in the summer of 2016. This phase will have six new classrooms on the first and second floors as well as a state-of-the-art technology center.

The second phase will begin in the summer of 2016, at which point hallways connecting the old and new buildings will be opened, existing CAD classroom will be renovated and divided into two instructional spaces, and the existing woodshop will be renovated and divided into two classrooms, the press release said.

The cost of phases one and two comes in at $9.5 million, but has already been paid for as the funds remain in capital reserve, according to board president Leonard Posey.

“We anticipated the need for this addition and renovation and budgeted accordingly,” said Posey in the statement. “In so doing, we are able to provide this addition without increasing debt and cost to taxpayers.”

The third phase of the project, scheduled for the summer of 2017, will renovate the existing visual and graphic arts wing. The fourth phase, planned for the summer of 2018, will finish the interior of the ground level area in the new wing and designed to accommodate enrollment and “program needs at that time,” the district said.

The two final phases are being considered stand-alone projects, which will be paid for through annual operating budgets and capital reserve funds at the time of construction.

The addition to the high school will be done on the west side of the building, or far right when approaching from Early Street.